I had been waiting to see this film for months, and finally got the chance today. I wasn't disappointed, the animation, backgrounds and music were all superb. It's very easy to like the main character, Tati, and his impeccably good nature. While the film shows off Scotland in warm, humorous tones, there is a real melancholy which starts to set in past the half way point.
Tati picks up a female companion near the start, who after watching the film, Lynsey and I felt she was abusing his good nature for personal gain. Then I read wikipedia, where director Sylvain Chomet has been quoted to say "A young lady actually thinks he's a real magician." This was apparent at the start of the movie, where she expects him to be able to fix a young lad's stuffed bear that had burst at the neck, also the community in which she resides has little to no touch with the outside world. So now it makes more sense, as the money he gives her is always pulled out of the air, and the gifts he bestows are always via magical tricks (and in one case, it was perceived to be magical.) I guess this must have been really obvious, but as I said, there was a moment where I thought that she believed him to be an actual magician, just that later on those thoughts were dispelled.
But anyway, it's an excellent film, probably the only animated one which depicts Scotland both realistically and respectfully.
A really interesting film, it's like a Japanese Simpsons. A fairly dysfunctional family go about their daily lives, where the film depicts this as vignettes. One of these vignettes' features their accidental abandonment of their youngest member, Nonoko, in the local shopping mall, where another involves the eldest family members confronting some antisocial youths. The film refuses to play up the drama for any situation, instead taking a lighthearted and comical approach, some times switching styles which change the mood quite dramatically.
The animation is very simple, all the excess is trimmed off so we can focus and what's important. Where there is simplicity, there is always added expression, so the characters emotions are communicated very well. The animation itself is very well done, and the style makes it enjoyable to watch.
The film is part 'slice of life', part surrealist, something which is made apparent within the first 5-10 minutes. I liked all of it, though I did fall asleep for about 15 minutes because I was really tired. Don't let that reflect poorly on the film because it's good fun to watch. I think the best bit was when the art style of the film changed very dramatically as the father, Takashi, reluctantly leaves his house in order to talk to some assholes on bikes. The characters are suddenly rendered very realistically, appearing to be rotoscoped, and it made me feel concern for Takashi's safety.
Funnily enough, this also stars DeCaprio. And like Inception, it's very intense, and also pretty damn enjoyable. It's another movie which apparently has alot of people talking, although I haven't heard anyone speak of it personally. So that's good, because when people hype films up like crazy, it can quite easily bring you down when you eventually go see it (Avatar).
It's probably a good one to see for a second time, due to the nature of the ending. I suppose you'd call it a twist ending, except the film sort of keeps you guessing throughout about what's going to happen. Even up to the very last moment, I felt like it could go one way or the other, which was quite clever. It's dark, thrilling, and the films conclusion is satisfying. Not usually my type of movie really, I often prefer slightly more easy going films I guess; that, or really weird ones. Recommended, but don't go in expecting to be blown away; save that for The Borrower Arrietty.
This is a pretty mad film about 2 orphans living in a large Japanese city, fighting for their district known as Treasure Town. The place is a decaying slum full of crime and oddballs, and these boys are pretty much the oddest of the lot.
Their names are Black and White, and they have unexplained supernatural jumping abilities. Conflict starts when the Yakuza moves back into town and attempts to take over - however, their defeat by Black only leads to the more dangerous and mysterious "Monsieur" Snake to arrive with his posse of 3 extremely tough "Foreigners".
The animation is great and I like the style of the characters, although the faces of Black and White can be a bit unappealing. This film was made by the same studio 4oC who animated a sequence in the Animatrix, the one called "Beyond". It features the same combination of complex and highly detailed backgrounds with relatively basic looking characters. Both also have children participating in lots of insane aerial high jinkery
Tekkon's soundtrack is by Plaid, of warp records, and it is a very good soundtrack. Warp are well known for their glitch genre of electronic music. The song played at the ending credits is especially awesome, I believe it is called White's Dream.
Towards the end of the film, the tone takes a darker turn. Without spoiling the plot, there's not much more I can say, but it deals with the relationship between White and Black and their deteriorating psychological states. One particular sequence is intense and quite disturbing, depicting characters in spasmodic movement and hanging school children, albeit briefly.
Overall it's a good movie. However, White can be a bit annoying at times. It has some great characters in it, especially the more well rounded Yakuza members and the soundtrack is ace.
Mir 2 is an mmorpg currently still available to play, but is only now a shadow of it's former self. When I started playing, around 2001, it was with 3 real-life friends, the game was only a week or two into it's Beta stages and was free to play. It was really fun exploring this large, mysterious world, akin to that of when I played Zelda: Link's Awakening for the first time. I killed a few hens and deer, and started my slow progression through the game. At that time no-one knew what anything was, which made it so much more fun. Eventually I got bored, and stopped playing.
A while later, I came back, the game had been updated quite significantly by this time. I had lost touch with all the people I once knew, my RL friends were also long gone, which was quite depressing, but I quickly made new friends. It helped that I was now playing with my brother.
What was great about this game was the competitive element. You'd see the same people day in day out, which made it feel like a tightly knit community. The forums were like internet hollyoaks, only much more entertaining. I made some great friends, and some enemies, too. I then quit once again, and finally, so did the game, closing early 2009.
I still really like this game, because all you did was kill monsters with friends then fight enemies with them too. The new Mir isn't as good, and not really worth playing.
According to this blog post, a film based on Mir 2 is currently being developed in China. Even if it's terrible and receives no translation, I will probably watch it. Back in 2001, the game had over 200,000 simultaneous users in China, and it is still very popular there and in Korea.
I know what you're thinking: Gay? Surprisingly, no. Well, I'm not sure what the Japanese think of Tingle, he is undeniably camp, but this game pretty much confirms his heterosexuality. It's the first game to feature Tingle as the main protagonist, and it takes place before his excursions with Link (Majora's Mask, Wind Waker...etc.) And how does it prove he's as straight as a rupee's edge? Well, because he daydreams about bathing with naked ladies! Seriously, that's about as straight as it gets.
Not like it's wrong for Tingle to be gay, I think it's just unusual to be gay in a Zelda game.
So this DS title is actually really good fun. Like DQ:Rocket Slime, it's pretty damn bizarre, although you could classify it as an adventure title. Adventure, yes, but it's nothing like a Zelda game. You control Tingle, who starts off as a normal man, wearing normal clothes and acts....normal! In fact, his name isn't even Tingle, it's whatever you chose it to be. So, whilst reclining at home, he hears an alluring voice, which turns out to be that of the Rupee God. The wizened currency deity mentions that Tingle can reach a place of infinite happiness called Rupeeland if he plops enough money into the magic pool behind he house. He must also don the garb of the Tingle...and thus, he remains cursed forever.
The gameplay is pretty unique - you go around collecting ingredients, mixing potions, and talking with all sorts of odd people. Really odd people! At first, no-one trusts you; then the games signature mechanic comes into play. You have to give them rupees - for pretty much everything - but younever know how much. You just have to guess. And should you guess wrong, that's it - the moneys gone, and you have to guess again. This wouldn't be so terrible, but rupees are Tingle's LIFE. Literally. In place of heart containers, or hit points, your wallet claims all damage wrought upon you.
It has to be one of the least forgiving games I've played, everyone in it is a total jerk. You need rupees for everything in this game. It is also a great addition to anyone's library, especially if they're looking for something out of the ordinary. I love how many odd games there are on the DS - it has to house some of the most strange and unique games I've ever played.
So Dragon Quest IX has come out recently here in Europe, the latest edition in a series I've long been itching to give a try. And it's really good - sure, in terms of battle and overall presentation it's nothing new, especially to hardened DQ fans. But the characters and dialogue are excellent, so are the graphics and sound effects, and the amount of LOOT!
...but that's not what I'm wanting to post about. The Above game is one I only found out about when reading the latest issue of Edge magazine. It had a colorful, multi-page article about this quirky wee title. As soon as I saw the immensely appealing character design, and read the premise of the game - where you play as a Slime called Rocket on his adventure to save 100 of his friends and rebuild their home city of Boingburg, ravaged by the Plob, I just had to get it. What I got was one of the most original games I've played in a long time.
I'll admit, before I played Dragon Quest games I didn't like the design of the Slime character. He's an icon in Japan - in the lofty ranks of Pikachu and Mario's popularity - and it's only from playing the games that I see why. They are immensely appealing, the way they move and are animated, their sound effects, and dialog, would crack a smile on even a hardened criminals face. The amount of puns used in the game is on a Wallace and Gromit scale, due to some fantastically well executed localization.
The game itself is pretty damn unique - you bounce around the game world saving 100 slimes, all put in treasure chests which are scattered around each area by the plob, a race of platypus creatures. You also collect all objects you find, as well as enemies, and bounce up to 3 things at once on your head. Then these items (and foes) are placed on trolleys which head back to Boingburg. The items you find turn out to be used as ammunition in gigantic castle tank battles, and the enemies are your helpers if you collect enough of them. The battles themselves are frantic, with an outside view of the battle taking place topscreen of the DS whilst you run around frantically loading up cannons and defeating enemies on the lower screen. Hop into a canon yourself to blast over to their tank, where you can sabotage it from the inside - which you will ultimately need to do in order to destroy it's engine, the literal beating heart of the tank.
It's a bit easy, but there are more than enough difficult games out there if I want a challenge. It's just nice to play something that is so different, unclassifiable, genre defying, and as totally charming, as this title. Long live slimes! *slurp*
TAS stands for either Tool Assisted Superplay, or Speedrun. A TAS is different from a regular speedrun as it's main purpose is to push a game to it's limit, exploiting the system on a level which is not normally humanly possible - but made so via use of an emulator, save states, and frame rate slow downs. Usually a TAS manifests in the form of completing a game extremely quick - some graphical or frame rate glitches can be exploited so as to make a 15-20 hour long game (like Mario 64) completable in minutes. I like them because they are fun to watch - and it's interesting to see what can be done to make the game shorter. Running through walls, getting damaged to move faster, anything is done to shave off a few seconds.
Also, you really have to admire the people who chose to spend their time making a TAS - an extremely repetitive job, that requires an utterly complete knowledge of the subject material (the game) not only on a control level, but a programming level too. They are therefore much more time consuming and difficult to construct than it is to simply play a normal speedrun, by a vast margine.
There are hundreds of them, all available on Youtube or Speed demos archive. I'm such a nerd, they really keep me engrossed. My favourites are usually the sonic ones. Some of them are played so well that it gives character to the sprites - a silent era movie style of character, in the way Sonic and Tails SHOULD have been portrayed in the cartoon series (and later 3D-era games). OK, I'm going to have to explain how they do this, so, new paragraph time.
Basically at the end of each stage it takes about 10 seconds for your score to be tallied. There is no exploit to make this go faster - so rather than just have the characters stand around and do nothing at this point (because they are still controllable) with the TAS both Sonic and Tails are given life. They jump around in synchronization, have play fights, every ounce of character possible is sucked out of those few animated sprites and put on screen. If there is one TAS I recommend any fan of Sonic or videogames to watch, it's this one:
It's really great how far they can push those sprites to act, I guess i'm probably looking into it way too deeply (geeking) Anyway, here is a list of other good ones:
This game relates to Toy Story for me. When I saw the first TS film, it blew my damn 7 year old mind, immediately after we left the cinema I asked my parents when we could see it again. Turns out that I next saw it on video at home. :( But also :), as I had the chance to buy the game version for the Mega Drive! Well, either that or an obscure title that caught my eye, featuring a cute yellow star with cool Sonic shoes. Remember, this is when movie to videogame crossovers were actually good, especially disney games, so this was a tough decision. Buy the game I of the movie I had enjoyed so much, or impulse buy a relatively obscure title based on looks alone? So I got Ristar instead, which I deeply regretted at first, but eventually, I grew to really, really like it. The punishing mistress that it was! I even made a Ristar T-Shirt for a primary school project. I was proud of it, and other people seemed to admire it too.
So in the game, you play as Ristar, a cute character awoken from his celestial slumber by the cries of a planet in dire need. Planet? I meant to say.... Galaxy! So you travel from world to world (stage to stage) each themed appropriately, as per the rules of gamedom - Ice, water, forest, lava and so on. What makes this game stand out is how Ristar attacks - he stretches his arms, grabs then headbutts enemies. He even makes use of this technique to climb walls, and swing on branches. In fact he pretty much solves everything with his trusty headbutt.
Another stand out feature is the excellent music. Now, I can only think of a few Mega Drive games which had good music - Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles, Ristar, Dynamite Headdy...then my mind goes blank. That's ok, good music is what the SNES is for. But this is among some of the best music on any system! Especially that lava world stage 1 music, so damn awesome. And when you complete a world, you're treated to a cool transition scene, complete with a kick ass space travel tune.
One thing I remember clearly, is that this game is hard. Especially that damn music level. It's boss is a bird whose singing is so bad, it hurts, which certainly didn't help my temperament. Just thinking about it...rargah! Broken screen mega drive controller thrust. Actually, I didn't break any controllers in frustration until Mario Kart Double Dash. Mostly because controllers in the 16 bit days were so freaking robust!
